I kid, but also not really because the closing minutes of Average Joe Season 1 Episode 10 were jaw-dropping and would have had me clutching my pearls if I owned any.

In a day and age where so many are afraid to take risks when closing out a season, that was far from the case here, as we were left on many a cliffhanger and a deep sorrow when those end credits came rolling around.

Average Joe Season 1 has been building up to the showdown between Nicolai and Joe, as Nicolai finally came face to face with the man who killed his son.

Naturally, Joe was tied up, and Nicolai could get his shots in, but outside of that, the scene did not play out the way I thought it would.

There was much conversation between the two men, each lamenting their own fathers, and Nicolai even delving into his traumatic childhood. And the two were able to understand each other on some fundamental level before they reoriented themselves to the circumstances at play.

Considering this whole show hinged on Teddy ripping Nicolai off, there's still so much we don't know about him, but what we do know has never been great.

He wasn't a seemingly supportive parent who championed his son or made him feel appreciated and valued. Teddy took a more distant approach to mold Joe into the man he thought he needed to be to contend with the big evil world.

It's a rather cruel form of parenting because it leaves the child constantly feeling as if they did something wrong and were why their parent decided to keep them at arm's length.

In adulthood, Joe can recognize what Teddy did, but in no way should he understand it. Joe may have been prepared and better equipped for what's happening to him, but at what cost?

Nicolai was indeed a psychopath through and through, without a lick of remorse for anything he'd done in his life. I'm not even sure his quest to find Dimitri's killer wasn't more than him feeling unmoored because his death was out of his control.

Nicolai never mourned his son and even went so far as to kill someone who did.

If there's one thing Nicolai won't stand for, it's ineptitude, and he probably felt a little of that on himself when his decision to send Dimitri into grown-up business ended up with his death.

Another shock in how this all ended up was Joe being the one to kill Nicolai outright before any of the others came inside to help him out.

Just what were they doing outside? Peeking through the window while Joe was fighting for his life?

Arina FINALLY came around to the winning team after Jennifer said what we've all been thinking; why in the hell was she letting that diabolical man run her life? Arina was too dangerous and smart to allow that man to manipulate her any longer.

Jennifer: You have to choose. Are you gonna keep being a killer, working for that monster? Or. Or are you the mother who doesn’t bow down to the man who took your daughter away from you? When you look at your little girl, what do you want her to see in you?

_{🔗 permalink: You have to choose. Are you gonna keep being a killer, working for that monster? Or. Or are…}

There were some classic Average Joe moments during this hour, namely involving Leon and Arina, that made me wish we'd seen more of them throughout the season.

Leon: So, um, thanks for your help back there. I do hope you see your daughter soon.

Arina: Thank you.

Leon: And if you ever need anything from me, seriously, please don’t ask. Really hope we never see each other again. You’re just really bad news.

_{🔗 permalink: And if you ever need anything from me, seriously, please don’t ask. Really hope we never see…}

But alas, the big team-up was shortlived but necessary, and it was poetic that all the people Nicolai had wronged recently and in the past got to be there when he was dumped unceremoniously into the lake with nary a word spoken.

Once Nicolai died so early into the episode, I wondered what that could mean because that really was the resolution to the season-long story. With Nicolai dead, what else is there?

Wrapping up Arina and Talford's stories was nice, and I fully expected them to give everyone a happy ending because it's been a rough season, and they all deserved that win.

But Average Joe has prided itself on being a twist-filled adventure from the jump that doesn't hold back any punches, and wrapping everything up neatly would have gone against everything it stands for. So, instead of heartfelt conversations, happy tears, and the crew sharing a laugh around the Washington living room, we got absolute DISASTER.

Let's start with Cathy and Leon, who finally reunited after Cathy went off to find the buried treasure during Average Joe Season 1 Episode 7.

Cathy's presence has been significantly missed, and the only reason to take her away from the main action would be to set up another storyline, which ended up being this drug story.

I assumed Cathy must have found a lot of heroin, and that theory was pretty much proven, although just how much heroin is apparently the secret of the century.

Cathy went headfirst into the drug business without really thinking it through too much, and luckily Leon was back to be there when Cathy met back up with Bobby, who had shady written all over him.

And shady doesn't even begin to cover it because why was that cop pulling a gun on Cathy? That does not seem like proper protocol. And where was his backup? There was a lot of shady activity going on during that whole exchange.

Once Bobby started shooting out any which way, Cathy should have been safe, but no! That shot to the back looked horrifying, as did all the blood rushing out.

They were out in the middle of nowhere, and Leon went to kill Bobby before he even considered getting Cathy into the car and getting her some help. So, how does she survive this?

I want to see a path forward here (please help me see it!), but I'm not right now, especially considering how we left Cathy and Leon. Their story has come full circle from where we met them in Average Joe Season 1 Episode 1.

They re-established their bond and reaffirmed their love. As soon as Cathy spoke those three little words to Leon, I should have known she wasn't long for this world.

Touch has been on a rollercoaster ride for a long while, and getting clean over the past few days made him stop hiding behind his guilt and confront it head-on by stepping up to speak to Donna instead of hiding behind money he'd leave for her.

But things went spectacularly askew when he talked to Tess's mother, who had every right to read him for filth, even if it was tough to hear.

Touch's behavior was abhorrent, and no one knows that more than him, as he's been punishing himself for years. He's tried to do something to make it better, in his own way, but he would never be able to make up for what happened, and Margaret let him know that.

Both Tess and Donna were now gone, and Touch's actions directly impacted those outcomes. No amount of money changes that.

Margaret's anger was justified, but pointing Touch toward a gun was uncomfortable to hear, as was watching him struggle with whether or not he was going to follow through with her wishes.

Seeing the gunshot through the window was a truly devastating moment on so many levels, and the lack of resolution feels cruel, though it's in line with the series we've come to admire for its brashness and refusal to play by any set of predetermined rules of what a drama should be.

Perhaps Touch followed through, or perhaps he shot the wall in frustration. We'll need that Season 2 expeditiously so we can find out.

We also need to find out who was at Joe's door when the episode closed!

If you've been paying attention, you know all signs pointed to Angela leaving Joe as soon as everything was settled because she no longer felt like her marriage was being treated as a partnership. And she reached her breaking point when Joe put Jennifer in danger.

Angela is a mother first, and leaving Joe, while surely it was difficult, felt like the only option when she'd been so thoroughly ignored throughout so much of their ordeal. She loved Joe, but she needed a damn break.

And coming off a kidnapping and seeing people die right in front of her face, Jennifer also needed a breather.

As I stated after Average Joe Season 1 Episode 9, I could understand why Angela would choose to walk away from Joe because this Joe was not the man she married, and this was not the life she wanted.

Sure, Nicolai is dead now, and life can move on, but you can't just compartmentalize all the trauma you JUST went through and pretend things can return to normal. There's no pizza and wine and a toast to a job well done that can undo all that damage.

There's deep-rooted pain and sorrow, and Angela and Jennifer are well within their right to digest what happened and return on their own terms if they choose to. And on their own time.

Extra, Average Facts

• Cathy is an actress! And performer! She played those cops so well they didn't know what to do besides send her on her merry way.

• Are Talford and Touch (assuming he's still alive) still cops? Like, what is happening with their jobs now?

• I sincerely hope Arina took her little girl back to Atlanta and they're living peacefully somewhere. But selfishly, I need her and Leon to team up again…for science.

• Major props to all the actors for this first season! Everyone played their part well, and the chemistry between the characters made this season what it was.

Well, that's a wrap on Average Joe…for now! No word yet on if the series will be back for another round, but it would be such a pity if we never get the resolution for that heartbreaking cliffhanger!

Jump into the comments and let me know what you enjoyed about the finale and the season at large.

I had a lot of fun covering this series, and hopefully, with some word of mouth, more people will find this little gem because, in an oversaturated field of television, it's a series worth checking out.

Disappointing and Downright Offensive Character Departures

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The post Average Joe Season 1 Episode 10 Review: You Must Be Joe appeared first on TV Fanatic.

Leon and Joe were severely outnumbered when they approached Nicolai's cabin on Average Joe Season 1 Episode 9, and yet they found themselves with a significant leg up before it all went downhill.

One second, it looked like maybe they would pull off the impossible, but when it rains, it pours, and just like that, they got stuck in Nicolai's orbit, and the sociopathic mobster had the upper hand.

Not a single part of me was prepared for Leon to show up and show out the way he did, but he's always had it in him.

Leon gets put down a lot, to the point where it can feel like a running joke more than anything else, but it felt like he started to buy into it. And sure, he's had some bumbling moments, and maybe he wasn't as stone-cold as his friends, but Leon is no coward.

A cowardly man wouldn't do half the things Leon has done, including help his best friend when he could easily run for the hills. Leon is a brave soul and a good shot, which he repeatedly proved while in the wilderness.

Joe and Leon splitting up had disaster written all over it, but it worked in their favor because they probably would have been caught a lot earlier if they had both gone into the cabin together.

Leon never seemed like a great marksman, but it's not as if we've seen him shooting a lot, either. Not until the flashback, that is, which saw a very confident Leon when he had a nail gun in his hand.

And that's the thing with Leon. He can lack confidence, which can be mistaken for spinelessness. But he's an intelligent and capable man, especially when he taps into his confidence.

I've always thought Leon was an essential piece of the friend group and would come through in a big way, and he sure did here, killing many men and being the first person to make Arina look like a regular person and not the Terminator.

He did everything right, and it was a long time coming for someone to give him his flowers!

And I'm happy that person was Touch because, at that moment, in the darkness of the woods, which would no longer protect them from their biggest fears, they had to get honest with each other.

The friendships on Average Joe are so special, and it's a massive part of what makes the story work. You must feel the love in these relationships, or things wouldn't make sense.

But because of the incredible chemistry between the leads, it makes sense for Touch and Leon to put their lives on the line for Joe and Jennifer. The relationship dynamics feel earned. They're all family at the end of the day, and that's been clear since Average Joe Season 1 Episode 1.

Touch has spent the last few episodes off with Talford and trying to come to terms with the guilt and shame from his past, all while detoxing in real time and trying to be there for the most important people in his life.

It's been a lot, and yet, it appears as though he's come out the other side.

There's something really poignant about seeing adult friendships' complexities and beauty. And when Leon just asked Touch if he was through being a junkie, it wasn't malicious or cruel. It was simply a question born from a place of love between two men who consider each other brothers.

Touch has been so secretive about his struggles, but he clearly wasn't fooling those around him as much as he thought he was. Now whether or not Leon and the others, assuming they know, should have done more to help Touch is certainly something that can be up for debate.

But now that it's out in the open, and Touch can't hide from it, what comes next it's what's important. Assuming they all make it out of this alive, Touch will need that support system to get him through because addiction is a lifelong battle.

For their part, while everyone was running through the woods, Joe was bunkered down in the cabin, and Angela was still in the hospital, contemplating how exactly she wound up in the predicament she found herself in.

Knowing that life was once different for Angela, and the path she had been walking suddenly veered into something else brings a lot of things about her into perspective.

She loves Joe, and she loves her family. That's not a question. But out of everyone throughout this situation, she's been the one most against things, preferring to stay within the confines of the life she's built for herself.

While Joe was ready to hurl himself into danger for the potential of a windfall and a new life, Angela was content with how things were and would have much rather run off to hide than stay back and subject her family to more pain and suffering.

I don't know who Tony is or where he came from, but his job was to voice all Angela's deep-seated thoughts out loud. Because as much as she loves her husband, he is undoubtedly the reason she was sitting in that hospital bed.

Maybe that's a little harsh because Joe didn't ask for any of this. He didn't ask for Teddy to get involved with Nicolai, nor did he ask for Dimitri and his lackey to ambush him and break his fingers.

But Joe has had clear opportunities to get out. To run as far as possible, alert the police, or do any number of things that wouldn't involve further trauma.

If you want to dive deep into Joe's decisions and whether they were right or wrong, that would probably be quite the dissertation.

And hindsight is always 20/20 because I've found myself thinking Joe has done the best he can with a crap situation while also recognizing if Angela chose to walk away from him at the end of all this, she would be well within her rights.

Do I believe that will happen? No. But the conversation with Tony wasn't done by accident, and with nothing but time while you're laid up in the hospital, how do you not think about every second that's led you to your current situation?

Again, assuming everyone makes it out alive, what comes next will be rather interesting because while they've only lied and killed to protect themselves, they are no longer the same people they were before all this started.

Those people in the flashbacks are long gone, and they can never bring them back. So how do they reconcile the people they were with the people they've become?

Extra, Average Facts

• I assume they're launching this Cathy storyline with the drugs to set up for a potential season 2, but it's a bit frustrating how disconnected she is from the main storyline.

• I'm a huge fan of Nicolai and Joe not meeting until the very end of the season. It ramps up the anticipation to insane levels.

• Angela has some supreme power to have a random man with a sore butt cheek willing to help her hide a dead body, no questions asked! Also, Angela is too smart to put things together about the man with the service dog so quickly.

• I can't watch Joe and Jennifer tearfully say goodbye to one another anymore! It's enough, Average Joe!

• Arina is in a tough spot, obviously, but from one mother to another, help Jennifer!

• The assignment was to run over the mobster in the road, and Talford took it to another level.

• I got a little teary-eyed during Touch and Leon's moment in the woods. I am such a sucker for the friendship between the three men on this show.

Somehow, we've reached the end of Average Joe Season 1, and while it's sad the ride is almost over, I'm excited to see how it ends!

Jump into the comments to let me know what you thought about this hour and where the season will end! 

Cliffhangers That Made Our Jaws Drop to The Floor

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The post Average Joe Season 1 Episode 9 Review: Sound Like Mail Man appeared first on TV Fanatic.

Nicolai beats up a tied-up Joe while the two talk back and forth about Dimitri and Teddy. Nicolai then tells him that he will be taking him back to Moscow with Jennifer so he can watch him beat her to death.

Leon goes to the van and is confronted by Arina. Arina gets the upper hand, pulling a gun on him, before Jennifer arrives and holds the gun to her stomach. Arina eventually folds and decides to help them.

The police find Cathy asleep in her car and ask her to step out while they search. Before they find the heroin, Cathy causes a scene by crying, and they let her go.

Angela returns home to an empty home.

Touch fights with one of Nicolai’s men outside the cabin, who is then shot dead by Arina, who arrives with Talford, Jennifer, and Leon.

Inside the cabin, the last of Nicolai’s men are killed, and he and Joe fight before Nicolai is killed with a broken golf club to the eye.

Joe and Touch dump Nicolai’s body in the lake.

Joe and Jennifer return home to Angela, while Talford threatens the Governor now that Nicolai is dead, which results in Gladys being freed.

Arina reunites with her daughter.

Leon meets up with Cathy at the hotel, and she tells him about the heroin. Later, she meets Bobby, and Leon follows them unbeknownst to him. After Bobby doesn’t give Cathy the agreed-upon amount, the two argue before he pulls a gun on her and demands to be taken to the rest of the heroin.

Cathy is able to spray him with pepper spray before escaping the car and running toward Leon; however, she’s shot in the back in the process. Leon then kills Bobby and discovers that he is a cop.

Touch goes to drop off money to Donna and knocks instead of fleeing. He’s invited inside by Margaret, Tess’s mother, and Donna’s grandmother. She tells him that Donna killed herself a few years back and calls him out for how he covered up Tess’s death. She then tells him he should kill himself before giving him a box with all the envelopes he left for Donna over the years.

Later at home, Touch puts a gun in his mouth, and a gunshot is seen coming from the house.

Joe returns home after getting dinner to discover the house empty. He reads a letter from Angela, stating she and Jennifer have left him. After reading, someone knocks on the door.

The post Average Joe Season 1 Episode 10 Recap: You Must Be Joe appeared first on TV Fanatic.

At the cabin, Joe and Leon canvas the property, with Leon retreating to a garage and Joe getting into the crawl space under the house.

In the garage, Leon punctures the gas tanks of the SUVs before one of Nicolai’s henchmen finds him. He’s able to disarm him briefly before the two fight. Leon eventually shoots him with a nearby nail gun, killing him.

At the hospital, Angela plays cards with another patient, Tony, and they discuss what landed them there.

Joe enters the cabin and hides in a closet, where he and Jennifer spot one another.

Cathy goes to a bar and meets with “Bobby,” whom she wants to make a deal with to help sell the heroin.

When Nicolai gets ready to move Jennifer, she fakes a stomach ache, drawing all attention to her so Joe can move from the closet to the bathroom in the cabin.

Leon kills another henchman who comes to the garage with the nail gun.

Jennifer enters the bathroom, but one of the henchmen follows her inside. Once he realizes Joe is in there, the two fight before Joe suffocates him with a plastic bag.

Angela asks a nurse about the support dog she saw in the hospital but is informed by a nurse that they no longer allow them.

Cathy and Bobby negotiate the terms of their deal, and each holds the other at gunpoint until they try the product. After agreeing to meet the following day, a high Cathy returns to her car and passes out.

Joe helps Jennifer exit the bathroom window and tells her to run while she stays behind. Jennifer runs into the woods but is soon chased by one of Nicolai’s men. Leon shoots at him from the woods, but he gets away.

Arina and Nicolai investigate the gunshots outside after realizing Jennifer is missing, and Leon shoots Arina in the arm before the two get back inside.

Nicolai’s man catches up with Jennifer, but Talford and Touch run over him. Touch then sends Talford off with Jennifer in the van to leave while Touch goes toward the cabin and finds Leon in the woods.

The service dog henchman heads to Angela’s hospital room to kill her, but she shocks him to death. Tony then comes and helps her to get away.

Arina shoots at the van with Talford and Jennifer, causing it to crash. Jennifer then runs off while Talford is passed out inside.

Hearing the van crash, Leon approaches the van while Touch continues to the cabin.

Joe leaves the bathroom inside the cabin and is hit from behind by Nicolai, knocking him out.

The post Average Joe Season 1 Episode 9 Recap: Sound Like Mail Man appeared first on TV Fanatic.

After getting the tipoff a lifetime (thanks to a newly sober Touch), Joe and Leon had Jennifer within their grasp during the final minutes of Average Joe Season 1 Episode 8, but they were severely outnumbered.

There's nothing like a father's love, though, and Joe couldn't stand being so close to getting Jennifer back and not doing anything about it.

Average Joe was clearly setting up for the final hours during this installment, another episode that took place over a day and saw a somewhat unlikely quintet form.

Bringing in Talford was kind of something that couldn't be avoided at this point because she knew enough, and playing dumb just wasn't an option anymore.

Joe did the right thing in asking for her help, and with Joe, Leon, Angela, Touch, and Talford all working together, the chances of finding Jennifer were much greater.

Poor Joe tried his best to keep it together, but his little girl was missing, and it was hard for him to keep that all inside. The absolute best moment of the hour was when Joe and Leon were staked out in the van laughing at Joe's memory.

It's very rare to find a series that can balance the extreme drama and action with comedy and instances of sentimentality. It's not easy, and yet, they're able to hit all the beats week in and week out without fail.

It's a perfectly cast show, and in an episode that relied a lot on character moments and less on action and fast-paced scenes, it was one of the strongest hours thus far.

While Joe and Leon were tracking the wrong group of men, Touch and Talford were the real MVPs, especially Touch, who cracked Gladys in about two minutes.

Talford has been trying to clear her mother's name for years, and that's one of the primary reasons she's even as far into this whole thing as she is.

Nicolai ruined her mother's life and hers in many ways, and she seems pretty willing to give up her whole career if it means Nicolai doesn't get to hurt anyone else.

I knew Gladys was lying, or at the very least withholding some information when she proclaimed without hesitation that she killed her partner. The confession was giving big, 'yes I did it, and I'd do it again' energy, but without a shred of conviction.

Talford couldn't hear it because she'd spent so much time trying to protect her mother, and to hear her so cavalier and again unwillingly to help in the fight against the real enemy was her final straw.

We haven't gotten to see a whole lot of Touch being a competent police officer, but he's not an idiot, and without the emotional component overtaking his brain, he could see what Gladys was doing.

Gladys had kept that secret for so many years that you could see the weight lift off her when she finally got to tell someone the truth. And Touch handled the moment so well, lending genuine support while using the moment to get help for his friends.

Without Touch, they were nowhere near finding Jennifer.

Leave it Nicolai to have some fancy cabin in the middle of nowhere where his secret plane can land.

Nicolai was in full evil villain mode, per usual, celebrating the impending birth of his grandson while plotting to rip him away from his mother as soon as possible.

Seeing the flashback of Jennifer and Dimitri was fascinating because it looked like two young people in love, which has always been how Jennifer saw it. She wasn't in the room when Dimitri was degrading her and their relationship.

She wasn't there when he authorized her father's fingers to be broken, threatening his life.

She remembered her boyfriend, the one who taught her Russian and the one she loved and saw a future with. And that flashback lent itself to that reality.

Dimitri is gone now, but he's still such an integral part of the story; as you can argue, everything started with his death. Sure, Teddy was the one who stole the money and the Lambo, but Nicolai couldn't be bothered to do any dirty work himself.

It was Dimitri's death that spurred him into real action.

The flashbacks are employed to fill in the gaps for the audience, and one that would be intriguing is one between father and son. What was their dynamic like? Was Dimitri really a henchman for his father the whole time? Or was he forced into it?

I'm not sure knowing that answer would change the fact that Dimitri wasn't a good person, but it would shade a few other things in.

But currently, Jennifer was pregnant and, thanks to Dimitri, very much aware of what was happening around her. Though there wasn't much she could do about it.

I wondered if anyone would figure out Arina's story and try to use it to their advantage, and Jennifer didn't even have to do much work because Nicolai is genuinely the worst.

He's holding Arina's nameless daughter hostage still when she's done everything he's asked, and you could see the wheels in Arina's head turning because any loyalties she had to Nicolai died the minute he took her daughter from her to use as leverage when he needed it.

Arina's whole schtick is the cold-blooded assassin. A woman of few words who can torture and kill without a moment's hesitation. But there's so much more to her than that, and Kathrine Barnes has the challenge of showing the audience these different sides often without saying a word.

And she does it beautifully.

I still maintain that getting to Nicolai will require help from the inside, namely Arina. And with her down by the docks and outside, might she run into Joe and Leon and decide to help instead of marching them to their deaths?

She's so close to getting her daughter back, but will her warring conscience allow her to do the right thing and help another mother avoid her fate?

With only two episodes left in Average Joe Season 1, we're about to find out if Joe and his friends have what it takes to best one of the most sadistic mob bosses in the game.

Extra, Average Facts

• Have I mentioned how great this cast is? Because they are.

• Were Jennifer and Cathy THAT close? Her reaction to Jennifer's kidnapping was super intense.

• Speaking of Cathy, ID Channel taught her well, and she found something on her quest for the money. Picking up someone outside a sober house and paying them to try out your product is pretty horrendous behavior. Deception, murder, theft. Is the crew going to add drug dealing to their repertoire?

• Cathy booked it out of that basement like she was on fire, but I imagine there was more product than just the bit Cathy got because she was far too excited about a potential windfall.

• Nicolai bringing a whole doctor and ultrasound out to his cabin to ensure Jennifer was actually pregnant was peak psychopath behavior.

• I know everyone was distracted, and so much was happening. And technically, Angela should have been safe at the hospital, but considering a powerful mobster had just kidnaped her, maybe she shouldn't have been left alone?

What's next for Joe and company? Will Jennifer get rescued? What else will Cathy find on her search?

So many questions, and we still have two episodes to go! Drop into the comment section and let me know all your thoughts as we barrel toward the finale! 

New Characters Worth Their Weight in Gold

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The post Average Joe Season 1 Episode 8 Review: Ride or Die appeared first on TV Fanatic.

Angela passes out, and Joe and Talford race her to the hospital while Leon goes to Touch's and catches him up on everything that's happened. At the hospital, Joe tells Talford everything that's happened and asks for help finding Jennifer.

At a cabin in the woods, Nicolai has a nurse perform an ultrasound on Jennifer to confirm her pregnancy.

The foursome reunites at the hospital, and Talford covers for Touch and doesn't tell Leon and Joe he's using.

Leon and Joe travel to a pierogi restaurant after a tip from Angela about Nicolai wanting to order from there, while Talford and Touch travel to the jail to talk to her mother, Gladys.

Cathy goes to Teddy's tow shop and looks around the office for clues or where the money could be. She finds a registration for a tow truck in the name of Eddie Philsky, and she looks up his address.

Nicolai celebrates the baby and tells Arina that he will fly Jennifer to Moscow and take the baby from her when the time is right.

At the pierogi restaurant, Joe and Leon see a group of men retrieve a large order and follow them to a nearby mansion. But when they ambush the house, they interrupt a sweet sixteen party and are chased off the property.

At the jail, Gladys tells Talford that she killed her partner because they were both giving information to Nicolai, but he wanted out and was going to rat on Gladys, so she killed him. Disgusted, Talford storms off, but Touch stays behind.

Touch accuses her of lying, and she admits that she killed her partner to protect her daughter, as Nicolai was threatening her. She then gives Touch the address where Nicolai may be holed up, and he shares that with Joe and Leon.

Cathy goes to Eddie Philsky's house and breaks in. She discovers a secret door that leads to a basement and leaves when she discovers a massive brick of drugs. Later, she finds a man leaving a sober house and asks him to sample the cocaine to find out its worth. He tells her it's actually heroin.

Joe and Leon case Nicolai's cabin from the woods as he prepares to leave for Russia.

Touch and Talford are held up on their way to the cabin when their car breaks down.

Not waiting for backup, Joe and Leon head toward the cabin.

The post Average Joe Season 1 Episode 8 Recap: Ride or Die appeared first on TV Fanatic.

With Angela in enemy territory, the race was on to free her from Nicolai's grasp on Average Joe Season 1 Episode 7, but what should have been a pretty straightforward exchange went completely off the rails when Jennifer threw a curveball no one saw coming.

And no one will ever be the same.

Joe had about seven seconds to get excited about finding the money before his world crashed.

And it was worse than just discovering he only found 1/10th of the money!

Angela's kidnapping naturally threw him into scramble mode, and I felt for him in those moments he realized that Angela was missing. But he was heavily misplacing his anger, probably due to the sinking feeling of guilt pooling in his stomach.

Not every bad thing that happened can be placed at Joe's feet. Outside of Jennifer, all these people are grown, and no one forced them to do anything against their will. That's the reality.

But out of everyone, Angela was the one that wanted to go. She was the one that wanted to keep her family safe and together. And it's not that Joe didn't want that, but his interests extended far beyond just protecting his family.

Leon gets the crap end of the stick a lot because he's an easy target. He's the one who folds under pressure and is a little jittery in every situation. But Leon shows up for his people first and foremost, and I wanted to jump off the couch and applaud him for standing up to Joe.

Joe does tend to misplace blame, which is a natural reaction, honestly. Getting defensive and shutting down isn't abnormal, but for Joe's first reaction to be yelling at Leon, the man trying to help his wife, while he was on a wild goose chase with Russian mobsters trying to hunt them down? Yeah, that doesn't sit right with my spirit.

Nothing was Leon's fault at all, and luckily Joe came around to show his appreciation for him, but it sucked that, yet again, Leon was the one getting the brunt of everyone's anger when he was the best one among them!

The decision to scatter everyone and get out of town was the right one because, at that point, the jig was up with the body count rising and their people getting directly tortured.

I understood why they wanted to go after the money, but that was before Angela drowned in Nicolai's backyard.

There was something fishy about the way Jennifer parted from Joe. You could tell she was holding back from him, but I naively just chalked it up to the fact there was a genuine chance that would be the last time she saw her father.

But the trick Jennifer had up her sleeve was not something I saw coming.

Now that we know Jennifer is pregnant with Dimitri's baby, it makes a lot more sense why it was so hard for her to grasp Dimitri's deception. It took a long time for her to seemingly understand that Dimitri wasn't a good dude, and that totally tracks when you imagine she's seeing him from the lens of being her unborn child's father.

As we saw in Average Joe Season 1 Episode 6, Jennifer is devoted to her mother, so when she waltzed into that diner, I wasn't at all surprised because she'd pretty much just promised her mother she was going to stand beside her no matter what.

But switching places with her and willingly going with Nicolai was a move that was certainly shocking.

Nicolai isn't a man you can trust, but I imagine her thought process was one where she thought she could buy herself some time at the very least. Because Nicolai wouldn't kill his grandchild, right?

He killed his own wife because she was crying too much, but if he has nothing else of Dimitri left.

His little speech about family was laughable, though, because Nicolai's only loyalty is to himself. He's got soldiers out in the streets pledging their whole lives to him, but he'd easily discard anyone if it meant protecting himself or getting what he wanted.

Before, I thought Angela should appeal to Arina's motherly ties, but she never got to talk to Arina outside of a well-placed middle finger.

But you have to assume that being with child, Dimitri's child at that, Jennifer won't be getting the same treatment as her mother. Plus, Arina may be feeling some type of way because Nicolai left her entirely in the dark.

Arina isn't there of her own free will, and if she found out where her daughter was, I don't think she would hesitate to flee from Nicolai the first chance she got.

Outside of help from Arina, I'm finding it hard to see how they get to Jennifer. Even if they returned every single thing Teddy stole, they can't give him back to Dimitri. And like hell is he going to give up his grandchild.

While Joe and company were dealing with the fallout from Angela's kidnapping, Touch was at home actively withdrawing and remembering the worst moment of his life.

Talford came across like a by-the-book cop at first, but with each new thing she discovered in this investigation, she realized that to nab the big fish, she would not have the luxury of playing by the rules.

And it's now officially clear that getting Nicolai is number one on her list, which works out in Joe and everyone else's favor, even if they can't quite see that yet.

Talford can kiss her whole career goodbye if she turns on Joe or any of them right now because she's broken so many rules. She and Touch are seemingly in a battle to see who can be the absolute worst cop, and right now, Talford may be edging Touch out. Maybe.

Using Touch's addiction to get information was tough to watch, as was watching Touch going through both the physical and mental aspects of detoxification without the help of comfort medications or support.

His mind took him back to Tess's death, which we saw a piece of during the flashback in Average Joe Season 1 Episode 2.

Touch still carries the guilt from both what happened and his cowardice in covering it up like an albatross on his neck. Drugs may numb the pain, but that pain has never subsided and probably never will.

It's a little unrealistic to expect this to be the thing that gets Touch clean, but his simply refusing to take the pill felt authentic to that moment. And when he wakes up and finds out what he's missed while chained to a radiator, using may be the last thing on his mind.

There's probably no way they can keep lying to Talford now, so bringing her in and working alongside her and not against her may be the way forward.

They may not trust her, but they should be able to trust her hatred for Nicolai. And that may have to be enough.

Extra, Average Facts

• Have I told you guys how much I love the flashbacks at the beginning of each hour? Because I love them. Here we saw perhaps the genesis for the Leon and Cathy we met in Average Joe Season 1 Episode 1. Leon is such a good man.

• Speaking of Leon, staying behind with Joe instead of leaving with Cathy had me scratching my head initially, but it really was in character for him. Joe is family, and for all Joe's faults, he would have done the same thing for him.

• I don't ever want to know what was in those letters Joe wrote for Leon and Touch because I will surely cry. They are all a mess, each with flaws, but they genuinely love one another.

• Where is the first place you think Cathy will search for the money? She was born and bred for this moment to use all her television-watching skills to pull off the ultimate scavenger hunt.

• It crossed my mind briefly that Jennifer was lying about being pregnant to save her mom, but she was definitely on the cusp of telling Joe when they left each other the night before.

We're creeping up to the Average Joe Season 1 finale, and the stakes have never been higher!

Jump into the comment section and let me know where you think things are headed this season. And what your favorite parts from this installment were!

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The post Average Joe Season 1 Episode 7 Review: Prisoners appeared first on TV Fanatic.

Touch is getting released from the hospital when he receives a call from Joe about finding the money.

Cathy arrives at the construction house and finds Joe with the money. But she tells him he’s only found 1 million dollars, meaning there is still 9 million out there. Soon after, Jennifer and Leon show up and tell them Angela was taken.

At Nicolai’s, Angela refuses to tell Nicolai who killed Dimitri, causing him to kill the one golfer in front of her. She also refuses to unlock her phone and call Joe.

Touch returns home and finds Talford there. She holds him at gunpoint, and he handcuffs himself to the radiator while Talford holds his drugs hostage. She puts a few pills just out of his reach, waiting for him to talk.

Cathy staples Leon’s chest wound, telling him they must start thinking about themselves and moving forward.

Nicolai tells Angela to call Joe, and he won’t kill Jennifer, but she continues to say no. When Angela and Arina get into a brawl, Angela gets the upper hand and pulls a gun on Arina and Nicolai. But when she calls Joe, she realizes the gun isn’t loaded, and Arina knocks her out.

Nicolai then talks to Joe, who admits to killing Dimitri. They then agree to meet in exchange for Angela.

In active withdrawal, Touch dreams about various dead people and his daughter giving him a gun to kill himself. In his sleep, he calls and cries for Donna.

Joe tells Cathy, Leon, and Jennifer to take their share of the money and run. He implores Jennifer to get out of town.

Leon tells Cathy he’s going to stay behind with Joe, and she goes off to find the rest of the money.

In exchange for a bump, Touch tells Talford about his wife’s death, which he staged to look like a suicide. In reality, he left his gun out, and his daughter Donna shot her dead. Talford gives him a pill, and she admits she can’t do things by the book anymore and asks for Touch’s help, but he throws the pill and goes back to sleep.

Nicolai sees a text message on Angela’s phone, and in the car to the meeting with Joe, Arina accuses him of keeping something from her.

Later, Talford finds Touch’s phone and sees a message from Joe detailing the meeting location with Nicolai.

Joe and Leon get to the eatery to meet Nicolai and review the plan. But when Joe gets into the diner isn’t there.

At another diner, Angela is shocked to see Jennifer come in. Nicolai then leaves with Jennifer and answers Joe’s phone call demanding to know where Angela is. Nicolai tells him where to find Angela, and he and Leon race to her, with Talford hot on their trail.

When they find Angela, she tells Joe that Jennifer is pregnant with Dimitri’s child.

The post Average Joe Season 1 Episode 7 Recap: Prisoners appeared first on TV Fanatic.

Ask Angela, and she may tell you he is, but it's easy to lose your sense of self when your ordinary life is suddenly unrecognizable. And Joe is most certainly not the same man we met in Average Joe Season 1 Episode 1.

With the money still out there and the Russians closing in, Joe and company needed to get back into the Washington house during Average Joe Season 1 Episode 6, and their plan was all sorts of crazy. But what else would you expect from this crew?

Angela and Jennifer have been a little wishy-washy about whether or not they should keep going after the money, so on the one hand, it's understandable why Joe pushed back on his wife when she told him to skip town and leave it all behind.

Because she was telling him to go after the money not too long ago.

But Angela's fears and desire to run have always been rooted in wanting to protect her family and nothing else.

She could feel the walls closing in with each new death that popped up, and above all else, she didn't want to see the people she loved become collateral damage in this war she never asked to be a part of.

Angela didn't seem to fully grasp how much it's not possible to back out now, though. They had an assassin on their tail, bodies were dropping all over the city, and it all circled back to them.

They were running out of options.

Going after the money wasn't going to solve all their problems in one fell swoop, but it would be a win, and they could use it to help them get out of town and maybe even help them with the Russians.

It's clear that Angela has always been the odd person out of the group, and you can see her becoming increasingly disillusioned with Joe the longer things go on, and she's not wrong to feel that way.

Or were they?

Jen: Dad could have us thrown in jail or killed, and you’ve just gone along with it. Make him listen to you. Stop protecting his ego. You’re better than that. You’re better than that, Mom.

_{🔗 permalink: Dad could have us thrown in jail or killed, and you’ve just gone along with it. Make him…}

They're now at a point where Joe sees a life that's more than just "nice." His father left him a mess, but it's not only something he seemingly feels like he has to see through but something that he wants to see through.

He's been battered and bruised, and he doesn't want all the pain and suffering to be for nothing.

And while Joe is most certainly a changed man, he hasn't completely lost his soul. He's still a man with a conscience and a heart. The man who will go back to save a dying man in a grocery store when it means he could die himself.

Jennifer is so young, and it's easy to forget, once you're years removed from being a teenager, how much you thought you had it all figured out back then. There's little you can tell an eighteen-year-old that they will accept at face value.

But Jennifer was the only one who seemed to understand Angela right now, and it's a good thing they have each other. Though, obviously, by the end of the hour, they're no longer together.

Talford: We’re not done by a long shot, Touch. I’m going back to your friend’s house, and you better hope I don’t find anything.

_{🔗 permalink: We’re not done by a long shot, Touch. I’m going back to your friend’s house, and you better…}

One of the best things the series did was introduce Arina. She's just as menacing as Nicolai and just as dangerous, and she's a formidable villain. They're saving Nicolai for the latter parts of the season, and it's a good move. Arina fills the role very nicely.

A shadowy bad guy can be a good thing when done correctly. And while Nicolai has been a background character mainly, he has proven to be diabolical and a man worth fearing. And they tease him just enough that he doesn't venture into cartoonish.

And adding Arina, as an assassin also beholden to Nicolai's power, only adds to his mythic lore.

I was curious why Arina took Angela's medicine previously, and now we know it was to track her down in a different way.

Taking Angela changes EVERYTHING because now it's very personal. And Joe will have to come face-to-face with his decisions and what it all means in the long run.

He's getting the money for his family, yet he's putting them in the most danger.

At least now, he has the ten million as a bargaining chip.

Joe: This man sure know how to fuck up a Christmas.

_{🔗 permalink: This man sure know how to fuck up a Christmas.}

Teddy put A LOT of effort into hiding that money and ensuring that only Joe could figure out where it was. But a man that leaves his son in the woods to teach him a lesson would surely not make a cute little map with an 'x marks the spot' plastered on it for Joe to find.

With the cops swarming the house, getting back inside wouldn't be easy, and Jennifer's plan to tell Talford some half-truths wasn't the worst. It would have gotten Talford off their case, at least prematurely, but involving people you can't trust is always dangerous.

And Talford is VERY much a loose cannon.

Did you fall for Touch's shooting? I did.

It was a pretty clever plan, if not a bit scary. Shooting someone, even with a vest on, could go wrong if everything doesn't go exactly as planned.

What if someone caught up with Cathy? Or she tilted the gun a little too much, and it missed Touch's chest?

They're lucky things went off without a hitch.

Joe: Fucking, Cathy. Bitch is a maniac. But her plan did work.

_{🔗 permalink: Fucking, Cathy. Bitch is a maniac. But her plan did work.}

Touch took the hit, but he wasn't expecting to get the third degree from Talford while recovering in pain and looking for his morphine.

The back-and-forth between Touch and Talford has been entertaining since she came on the scene, and with her mother's case lingering in the background, it just adds another absorbing layer.

Because while she wants to find out who chopped off Dimitri's head, she's tied to Nicolai differently.

For someone who does a lot of lying, Touch is awful at it. His face gives everything away, and Talford is far too intelligent not to see what Touch was trying to do. Obviously, he's protecting Joe, but Talford doesn't see Joe as some cold-blooded killer.

In a way, she's blinded by her Nicolai hate, though in other ways, she's not wrong to put her focus there.

It's too soon for Talford to understand what's going on, so it wasn't surprising to see her narrowly miss Joe hiding in the closet clutching ten million dollars to his chest. But she's certainly getting there.

Searching Touch's house didn't yield anything that would help her with the case, though now that she knows about his drug problem, it'll be interesting to see how she moves with that information.

Touch needs help, so will she be that help for him, or will she use this new knowledge to get something she wants from him?

We're halfway through Average Joe Season 1, and if you were worried the series would lull or bring that high energy down, there's no need to fret.

The series is only getting stronger.

Extra, Average Facts

• Why do they always make the Governor the slimy guy in these crime dramas? Governor Davis being a Nicolai minion again reiterates how much influence Nicolai has and how brutal this fight against him will be.

Talford: What exactly do you need me to do, Governor?

Governor Davis: Chill.

Talford: Chill?

Governor Davis: Chill.

_{🔗 permalink: Chill.}

• RIP golfers. Let this be a lesson not to use someone's tragedy to seek out a viral moment.

• Leon is easily the heart and soul of the group, and I feel so bad for him because he continues to get such little respect. But my guess for the back half of this season? Leon will eventually come through for his friends and family in a big way.

• This hour was missing Cathy heavily.

• If Angela can try to appeal to Arina, from mother to mother, there may be a path there. Arina is as hard as they come, but she's reprogrammed herself solely so she can get back to her daughter, and if Angela can get to that part of her, Arina is the weakest link Nicolai has right now.

• The flashbacks at the beginning of each episode are such a nice touch in setting up the tone of the hour and giving you some much-needed context.

Things are getting very, very real now for Joe and everyone as the Nicolai threat gets closer every day.

Let me know in the comments what you thought about the hour and where you feel things may be headed next.

Make sure you catch Average Joe on BET+ every Thursday when a new episode drops! 

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The post Average Joe Season 1 Episode 6 Review: Green & Blue appeared first on TV Fanatic.

With the cops still scouring Joe's house, the crew assembles at the construction house to devise a plan to get inside and look for the money. Joe shoots down Jennifer's plan to tell Talford some of the truth in exchange for police protection to get them inside the house.

Angela implores Joe to leave town, but he pushes back and tells her to give him some time.

As Talford begins to piece the case together in her office, she is visited by Governor Davis, who tells her there may be a path to her mother's release from jail if she chills out on going after Nicolai.

The golfers who found Dimitri's head are approached by Arina, who takes them to Nicolai, where they are tortured.

Touch pulls over a speeding vehicle, and when he goes to the driver's window, he is shot in the chest.

Talford is pulled off the Dimitri case, and then she and all officers get the call about Touch, causing all the cops at the Washington house to leave. It's soon revealed that Cathy was the shooter, as they used the distraction to free up the house.

With the cops gone, Joe goes inside and starts looking for the money in the attic.

Leon takes Angela and Jennifer to the pharmacy to get Angela's medication, and on the way, Jennifer confronts her about pushing back against Joe. The conversation prompts Angela to get out of the car, and she and Leon talk on the side of the road.

Armed with Angela's medicine bottle, Arina finds out which pharmacy her medication is at.

Talford goes to see Touch at the hospital, questioning him about Joe and Teddy and telling him about the Governor's deal. After discovering that the police were pulled off Joe's house, she tells Touch she's heading there. Touch then calls Joe to give him a heads-up.

Feeling frustrated, Joe takes it out on the deer's head and is confronted by a cop in the hallway, whom he soon realizes is actually one of the Russians. He plunges the deer's head into the man's torso and finds the money stuffed inside.

Joe is forced to hide in a nearby closet when Talford arrives, and she gets the man to ID Joe via family photo as the one who injured him before she kills him.

Joe takes the money back to the construction house, where he's all alone.

Talford goes to Touch's house and snoops around, finding his drug paraphernalia.

At the pharmacy, Angela and Jennifer go inside to get the medication, and Jennifer hangs back to get her mother some flowers. When she leaves the store, she finds Leon slumped over the wheel of the car, injured, and Angela gone.

Angela is driven away, tied up in the trunk of a car driven by Arina.

The post Average Joe Season 1 Episode 6 Recap: Green & Blue appeared first on TV Fanatic.